“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.”

“It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”

“And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

13 comments

A million politicians in the history of humanity cannot compare to one Steve Jobs.

People like Steve Jobs have done more for ordinary citizens by making cutting edge technology available to everyone at reasonably cheaper rates, than all these politicians whose only jobs is to loot and waste public wealth.

The tragedy of India is that we have not been able to create a society in which people like Steve Jobs can do their work in a free and fair manner.

for all those bragging about private education his life shows why education should be free .
It also brings a question of asking biological parent names should not be asked for registering in schools.
and upholds institutions like Siddaganga to Harvard and Princeton.
Futuristic and ahead to even America.

Him loving Daasoha and embracing Buddhism makes him close to our hearts.

I am not contradicting myself. The thing is that you are assuming that it is the politicians who create society. That is not true.

Politicians are vastly over-estimated group of people people. They have a huge “damage” potential, but they are incapable of creating any value.

Society is created by philosophers and statesmen. Society is created by people who realise the value of human freedom, who realise that the human mind can come up with its best ideas only when it is completely free. Only when the statesmen and philosophers have created the ideology, the politicians come in and implement those ideologies through a system of laws.

Unfortunately, India has never had any statesman. All we have is politicians, who will sell their soul for a bundle of dollars and few more days in power.

India can produce a million Steve Jobs, but if have to whine yourself and degrade yourself before the political masters for every license, quota and permit, if you have to pay bribes, then Atlas will Shrug.

Atlas has Shrugged in India. He keeps Shrugging since independence.

That is why we continue to be a dirt-poor country, where aam admi is supposed to live on Rs. 32 per day, use a lousy junkyard tablet which costs $35, and find employment in a NREGA project, which creates nothing of value.

Most folks miss the biggest lesson of steve job’s life. It is that only a country, where an eco-system exists to enable triumph of merit, can produce a Steve Jobs.

It didn’t matter he was an penniless orphan, it didn’t matter he never had a degree, it didn’t matter he had a crazy identity (foreign biological parents) and followed an minority religion (Buddhism).

He didn’t have to run around trying to start a company, taking some 15 permissions and licenses. He didn’t have to humor govt. servants to launch his products or manufacture and import/export his products.

The biggest lesson of Steve’s life for me is – US Eco-system is so unique that regularly throws up folks like Jobs, Gates, Page & Brin.
While everyone is saying it is diminishing as a economic power, they forget, it is only the GDP of US that’s being threatened. Its eco-system of open minded promotion of merit is intact, irrespective of where it comes from, and in what form it exists. It is still best placed to do the most of innovations of the world.

It may take us a few more generations to achieve the same level of world changing innovations.